Sunday 28 February 2016

The Soundtrack To My Thoughts.

  A shark needs to keep moving forward constantly, because if it doesn't have water flowing through its gills, it gets a bad case of death.
  My need for new music isn't quite that critical -  but I do have to have fresh sounds to keep me going.  I never want to be in the position where I'm  only listening to the same things I was listening to last week, last month, last year...
 When that happens, I might as well get a cardigan with "I'm old and have no soul" embroidered across the back.

  So here's some songs I discovered recently and I've had on heavy rotation all week. It's an interesting mix so I hope you lovely people like 'em too.
 I'm not going to claim expert knowledge on any of these bands but I did a wee bit of research to give some thumbnail notes.

Grace - Fire of London (1980)

  In the same way that Heavy Metal had a bit of a rethink, post Punk, and came back with a stronger, punchier sound, something similar happened to Prog Rock.  The early 80s saw a new generation of bands that pared down the instrumental noodling and trippy lyrics in favour of choppy, rockier songs about modern life and modern society.  Marillion are the obvious example but Stoke band Grace got out of the gate first, releasing an album in 1979. .
  Sadly Grace would split up after this single and a live album but got back together in 1988. I remember them advertising regular shows in Stoke at the end of the 1980s, so I'm a bit annoyed that i didn't check them out earlier. 

  For people of my generation the subject matter of "Fire Of London" will click immediately.  One of the things I don't miss about the 1980s is the nagging worry that somebody somewhere would hit a big red button and set silos doors opening. 
  The song is a catchy but passionate description of worried survivors huddled in a bunker that Ian Anderson might have written if he was  younger and a little scared.



Helion Prime - Apollo (The Eagle  Has Landed) 2016

  This band got my attention as soon as I saw the Cd cover.
 Spacemen battling Space Dinosaurs...In Space!
I demand that somebody make this a movie right the hell now!

  There's not enough good female fronted Power Metal bands about. There's definitely not enough Female Fronted Power Metal bands around with a SciFi theme and as it turns out, this Sacramento band deliver the goods. I don't think a Power Metal band has got me this excited in ages. Can I get away with describing them as the SF Yin to Seven Kingdom's fantasy-styled Yang? 

 The song is fast-paced, singalong Power Metal with some great vocals. I particularly like the cunning deployment of backing vocals in key spots. It works really well and is a definite enhancement to proceedings.


Band homepage here: https://www.facebook.com/helionprimemetal/ so go check them out. 


 The next track I found by accident when I was looking for something else entirely.

Promises - Baby It's You (1978)

  Promises were a Canadian pop-rock band composed of brothers Jed and Benny Knaer and their sister Leslie and remain unknown in Canada, the USA and Britain.  Elsewhere it's a different story. 1978 single "Baby it's You" was a big hit in the Germany, Australia and South Africa with the video clip being a particular favourite in Australia, where it made a lot of teenage boys very happy.
Picture sourced from Plazilla.com - which also has the lyrics.

   Since co-vocalist/synthmeister Benny spends the entire vid sans shirt, there might have been some happy teenage girls too.  (Seriously. There's a few different clips floating around Youtube and Benny is resolutely shirtless in every single one.) 
   Promises were unable to follow up their hit and imploded in 1981, with Leslie moving on to rockier territory with Precious Metal and continues to record and perform to this day.  Here's her homepage.

The song.  Starts off with Benny on synth and vocals before sis Leslie storms in with a belter of chorus. Try this for a mental image:  Styx indulging in their wimpier side before a fired up Suzi Quatro kicks the door in from the next room to hijack the chorus. Definitely one of Youtube's hidden gems.    


  I will mention in passing that this is a duet between Brother and Sister so I wonder if that ever got uncomfortable. 
 

Ghost - He Is (2015)

   In theory Sweden's Ghost should be one of many, many Metal gimmick bands that plug away on the festival and club circuit. A bunch of faceless ghouls fronted by an undead pope?  Who's going to to take that seriously.  I know I didn't until I actually checked out their music and discovered that Papa Emeritus III and minions produce 70s-tinged Heavy/Prog rock with oodles of dynamics and subtle Occult leanings. 
  No wonder they've been such a massive success and even been on The Late Show

The song.   "He is" is a downright pretty song  until you realise who they're singing about. Did I mention that this band are into the Occult.  

  To finish, I'm going to share with you a song I keep coming back to for all the wrong reasons.

  Every single song on this page is something that made me go "Wow. What is this?" and hit the refresh button because I had to hear it again
. This one is more "What The Fuck Is This?" and repeated because I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

 Watch the video and see what I mean. Be warned. This is bizarrely hypnotic.

Darkeys And The Keys - Pulli Pulli (2013)


Welcome to the Weird part of Youtube. 

That's all folks. 

3 comments:

  1. Hi Big D,

    I've listened to Ghost before and that is the best song I've heard - as you say, very nice and if you didn't know who they were you would be shocked.

    I also liked the Helion Prime song; recently I've been getting into powerful female vocal fronted metal.

    The last one, lasted about fifteen seconds before I gave up. As you said "What the FUCK????"

    :o)

    Cheers

    PM

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hahaha hahaha haha, Darkeys and the Keys was hilarious and that Promise video is so atrocious it's almost good.
    The song however, is dreadful.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A bit of a mix. I really loved that Ghost song. Never heard of them before, so thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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